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Reminder! March 28-31: LCC 2019 Whale of a Crime and Special News!

Hello Precious Readers!

A final reminder that at the end of this month I’ll be attending Left Coast Crime 2019: Whale of a Crime* in gorgeous Vancouver, B.C., Canada! It’s only a bit north of my home so I’ll be making it a mini-road trip for traveling there.

I will be at LCC merely as an attendee. I haven’t been to this conference before as it has an annual, roaming location. Last year was in Reno, Nevada, next year will be San Diego, California. Lucky me as a Washingtonian, this year’s location is right in my backyard. Hoping to see you there if you’re in attendance!

From the website:

“What is Left Coast Crime? Left Coast Crime is an annual mystery convention sponsored by mystery fans, both readers and authors. LCC is held during the first quarter of the year in Western North America. Conventions have been held from Anchorage to El Paso, from Boulder to Hawaii, and various locations in between.

Our purpose is to host an event where readers, authors, critics, librarians, publishers, and other fans can gather in convivial surroundings to pursue their mutual interests.

Left Coast Crime is an all-volunteer organization — neither the members of the Standing Committee nor members of each annual convention committee are paid for their time. LCC is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization. Each Left Coast Crime Convention raises money to support a local literacy organization with funds collected through silent and live auctions, and the annual Quilt Raffle.

Who Is Left Coast Crime For? Left Coast Crime is for fans of the mystery/crime genre: readers, authors, librarians, bloggers, publishers, editors, agents, and booksellers.

What Happens at a Left Coast Crime Convention? Our days are built around panel discussions and other programming on a wide variety of topics designed to allow interaction between readers and writers. There are typically three or four programs to choose from during each time slot. The panels can be humorous or serious, educational or entertaining, and are often a mix of everything.There are signings after each panel slot and a book room.

Several special events are included in your Left Coast Crime registration: Thursday Opening Reception, Friday Meet the New Authors Breakfast, Saturday Awards Banquet. Other special events vary by convention.

Connections between authors and fans are encouraged with activities like Author Speed-Dating, Author-Reader Connections, and Author-Hosted Tables at the Awards Banquet.”

I hope to see you there, and I can’t wait to report about this major conference after I’ve experienced it and had time to process what I learned.

There is some new progress on the video game! I just received some of the first pages of the revised script late last week and already finished my edits. I’m excited about the new draft I’m seeing because it means our final version of the game will be even better than our awesome demo!

Also remember, the final version of Amelia Darnell will also be 100% free to download and play. I highly, highly encourage you to try the demo and let me or our team know what you think!

In more personal news…

There have been some major life changes over the last few months. My husband, Pilot got a new job at Washington-based big business, Boeing! This is, of course, a natural field for him to be working in. He’s loving it! I’m still plugging away at my daily life job at a school. Much of the country was laughing at Washington State due to the 2 weeks of snow we encountered in the month of February. Our home received 18 inches of snow! The East Coast tends to laugh at us West Coasters, but I find that a bit unfair. That amount of snow is highly abnormal for our area, so our towns and cities do not have have the same amount of plows or resources available to handle intense winter weather like our coastal counterpart. Grocery store shelves were ransacked and emptied, but for good reason. Washington is an incredibly hilly and still heavily forested, creating major pockets of immobility for its citizens and often leaving thousands without power for several days, sometimes weeks.

My in-laws, Honey and Silver Fox are out in the country at the top of a steep hill. Any time there is a wind storm/heavy rain, snow, etc. they always lose power, often for several days. There is a reason their home is naturally built-in with a wood-burning stove on each level of their home.

Alas, War Machine is no more as it died (over and over and over and over and over again) and had to be retired. We purchased a new (used) crossover vehicle, in a sharp blue, which Pilot has now lovingly dubbed Blue Steel. I call it Blue Streak. We’re still debating on the new name.

We are actually moving this month! We got the keys last week to a brand new Bacher Fort and will be spending the next few weeks moving in. I can’t explain how much changing from a dwelling with all carpet to a new place with hard-surface flooring is happiness-inducing to my life. It will make cleaning so much easier and help keep my allergies in check. I know a lot of people really enjoy carpet, but I hate it SO MUCH. Having hard-surface flooring will literally be life-changing. Less than 20 minutes to clean, I don’t have to worry about pet messes, it’s easier to move furniture, and so on.

This is good news because… Pilot and I are expecting our first child! That’s right, a Bacher Baby is on the way! The Bacher Fort is expanding, as well as my uterus. We planned this move because of us having 2 dogs and a wee babe-in-arms while running up and down stairs to take the pups outside is an incredibly bad idea. Especially when one half of our dynamic duo (meaning: me) is incredibly accident-prone, stairs + baby + 2 dogs on leashes = imminent death.

Baby Bacher is predicted to arrive end of July. This means as summer approaches my random blog postings may be even less frequent than they are now. It kind of depends on how I’m feeling. At least now, out of the first trimester, I’m no longer dealing with nausea.

Yes, I buried the lead.
Yes, you read that correctly.

In less than 6 months, Pilot changed jobs, our car War Machine died (over and over and over and over and over), retired War Machine, bought a new (used) car, found out we were expecting our first child, found a new place to live, am currently moving, and prepping for the arrival of Baby Bacher, ETA July 2019! Most of the time, the “experts” never recommend doing more than 1 of those things within the same year. We did all of these things in less than 6 months.

No sweat, right?Well, no one ever said we were smart.

If you’ve been a long-time reader of this blog, you already know that I’m not particularly sentimental regarding infants, nor am I a firm believer that every person is required to be a parent. Whether you choose to have children in your life or enjoy having a child-free lifestyle, I salute you. Neither is wrong, neither is better than the other. Success is only what you measure for yourself. I will not become one of those people who will inundate your inboxes with tons and tons of baby photos or videos.

Unless something particularly challenging or side-splittingly hilarious happens, most of our private life regarding Baby Bacher will be kept quiet. (Although as time goes by, I suggest keeping an eye on my Instagram for the occasional family photo.) I will never be afraid to answer any question you might have, so post your questions in the Comments section below. (Be prepared, I will answer you honestly.)

Yes, this means that if you take photos with me at Left Coast Crime 2019: Whale of a Crime, I will be sporting a baby-belly as well as my typical Michelin-man style fat rolls. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, people!

I wish you a happy end of winter/early inklings of spring and hoping this blog post finds you well.

*If you would like to attend, please note that pre-registration and fees may apply.

Haven’t read the Roxy Summers Mystery Series? Start with Capture Me and meet Roxy in a case of cat-and-mouse for a grand Seattle adventure! Then, travel with Roxy to sunny Los Angeles for a food competition to die for in her sequel novel, Crush On You! Roxy’s third book, Missing You has Roxy and friends searching of her ex-boyfriend, lost in a blizzard-riddled Alaska, hoping to find him before time runs out.